


strips away the paint

by flannelblues



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Autistic Spencer Reid, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26949967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flannelblues/pseuds/flannelblues
Summary: Spencer's missing a few memories from his childhood. After a case in which he comes into contact with a face he hasn't seen in years, he wishes some of those memories were still missing.
Relationships: Derek Morgan & Spencer Reid
Comments: 5
Kudos: 150





	strips away the paint

**Author's Note:**

> please, please, please read the tags. This one's kind of intense

“Well, fall break started about a week ago for both the elementary schools here, so, you know, the parks are a lot more packed than usual.” As he listens idly to the sheriff, Reid untwists the two halves of his cheap, blue-black pen apart, carefully removes the ink alongside the spring, lays each part out on the hard table before putting them all back together and repeats, repeats, repeats. Emily, JJ and Rossi have all gone to inspect the most recent abduction site. So he’s with just Morgan, Hotch and whoever from the local police department decides to join them. He wishes someone would shut the east-facing window as the beginnings of the faint October chill begins to creep in.

They’ve been directed into a small conference room with stark white walls to build a profile because, within the past month, the bodies of four children between the ages of five and eleven have been discovered in the same general suburban area in middle-of-nowhere small-town Oregon. Each victim had shown evidence of extensive violence and sexual assault but shared no physical features aside from a relatively short stature for their respective ages. All were abducted from one of three local parks. And a six-year-old girl named Maddie Swinson with bright ginger hair and a pale green sundress was just reported missing twenty-eight hours ago by her distraught mother. 

None of them want to say it, but all of them are painfully aware that every child’s body was found within two days of them being abducted.

Reid continues disassembling and reassembling his pen as he thinks over the details of the case. Morgan’s writing something on the whiteboard with an ugly green marker (notoriously the last color used out of the standard blue-black-green-red packs from the grocery store) that’s making a quiet squeak with every stroke. He’s also not saying anything, they’re all well aware of how much these kinds of cases tend to get to him.

“I’d like for agents Morgan and Reid to talk to Madelyn’s parents if that’s alright,” Hotch says to the sheriff as he stands up and tidies some of the documents and beige folders scattered on the table. Reid pouts a little, he doesn’t really like going to schools much these days.

“Officer Perez can drive you two down then,” The sheriff looks at Morgan and Reid before turning his head out the door and shouting, “Perez! Get in here!”

Shortly afterward, as Reid’s looking down at his pen and reassembling it for presumably the final time, he hears quick footsteps and then a, “Yeah, sheriff?” 

He hears the sheriff grumbling instructions to the officer before he’s bought out of his actions and turns to look at the two men by Perez’s shocked words.

“Spencer? That you, man?” He’s smiling, Reid knows that smile, he thinks. He forces one back and grasps at blurry fragments of long-gone memories 

“Hey, uh- Daniel, right?” He forces an equal tone of happiness, but he feels something tugging at the back of his brain.

“You two know each other?” Morgan looks between the two of them.

“Yeah! Our dads were like, best friends.” Perez strides over to shake Reid’s hand and is met with an admittedly awkward wave, it’s nothing personal. 

Reid’s starting to feel a little colder now, and he pulls his sweater tighter around himself as he examines Daniel’s features that he feels like he hasn’t seen in a lifetime. He can see himself, five-years-old and Daniel, anywhere from eleven to fourteen, kicking a soccer ball around with Daniel’s brothers and some other kids at one of many barbecues in somebody’s backyard under the hot afternoon sun, can smell thick sunscreen coating their faces that wasn’t really rubbed in properly. He never really liked soccer, but his dad was watching so he felt like he should. He can feel Daniel kick him in the shin on ‘accident’ while he goes for the ball, it’s unnecessary roughness but it’s nothing he wasn’t already used to. He sees Daniel, himself, and roughly the same group of five or so other children having an Easter egg hunt. A baby shower for Daniel’s little sister. Reid’s father’s thirtieth birthday.

He sees himself and Daniel in the older boy’s bedroom, feels the thick summer air, sees the posters that Daniel has labeling every planet and their individual moons, feels hands, _hands_ that shouldn’t be where they are, and then he senses something that just isn’t _right_. He brings himself back to the present and follows Morgan and Daniel out the door.

There’s not enough time to think about that right now.

-

He’s behind Morgan in the backseat and occasionally catches Daniel trying to make eye-contact in the rear-view mirror. Reid just stares at his knees and tries to think of anything, anything else. Anything other than Daniel's large, rough hands on his body which was just so _small_. 

The whole scenario reminds him of just a few months ago when they’d had a case back in Las Vegas and Reid managed to convince himself that his father had committed murder. If those memories didn’t mean anything, why should these be any different?

“Reid.” He opens his eyes at the sound of Morgan’s voice. They’re already stopped on the curb outside of a basic, middle-class home with a rusted olive roof and at least a hundred marigolds littering their garden. Daniel’s already walking up to the door.

“Yeah?”He mumbles, stretching a little as he unclips his seatbelt. Morgan eyes him from the passenger seat.

“You’ve been kinda quiet back there, something up?” 

“I was just tired, didn’t get much sleep on the jet.” Morgan goes in for a rebuttal to the claim, but Reid stops him by stepping out of the car. 

They’re a few meters up the driveway and Daniel’s just rung the doorbell. “We’re talking about this later, okay?” Morgan murmurs with a hand on Reid’s back. They both know that it is not by any means, up for debate.

Morgan’s going over the details of what Maddie’s mother remembers of the abduction while Daniel entertains the Swinsons’ youngest, their son Joey, in the other room, the four-year-old blissfully unaware of the nature of the situation. Mrs. Swinson is clutching a small toy lamb wearing a pink bowtie. It doesn’t look store-bought, made by a relative, maybe? 

“She was playing on the flying fox. I was just taking Joey to the bathroom- He’s not old enough to go by himself, it’s not safe.” She cries, still keeping a near death-grip on the toy. Her eyes look like they have to hurt from how red and puffy they are. Mr. Swinson, a tall man with thin-rimmed glasses, rubs circles on her back. 

“Mrs, Swinson, did Maddie have her lamb with her at the park?” Reid says, trying to take the conversation in a more useful direction.

“She named it Strawberry,” She says, her lip wobbling as she looks down at the toy’s beady eyes,“- but yes, she did. I found it in the long grass, near the swingset.”

“Would she have just dropped it if she got distracted, or is that unusual for her?” Morgan chimes in.

“She barely lets go of it,” Mrs. Swinson strokes the fabric softly, “, I can hardly get a hold of it long enough to give it a wash.”

The conversation is interrupted by the sound of laughter. Daniel’s got Joey on his shoulders, who looks like he’s having the time of his life,

“Look how high up I am, Ma!” The child shouts and is met with forced smiles and cheers from his parents.

Daniel’s eyes make direct contact with Reid’s, who almost instantly looks to his side and then tries to find any element of suspicious behavior in the older man. But all he can see right now is a kind and honest officer who’s making an effort to cheer up a little kid. Not to mention the fact that he has a solid alibi of being at work during the time of the most recent abduction.

Reid gives him a tight smile and waves at the small boy on his shoulders.

He wonders if Daniel remembers too.

-

The three of them stop at a local diner for a late lunch as the sky begins to turn orange.

“God, kid, you were so tiny back then. Now look how tall you are!” Daniel says as he picks up his burger. Reid taps the side of his chocolate milkshake and gives a small chuckle.

“So how long have you been working in the PD?” Morgan looks to Daniel but spares a glance at Reid as he talks.

“Six years now. But I only recently transferred here, so they all treat me like a bit of a newbie.” 

He and Morgan are talking so casually and Reid doesn’t know why that makes his gut twist. It’s not like Morgan has any reason to dislike the guy, so obviously, he’s going to treat him with respect.    
  


Reid feels condensation from the milkshake drip onto his fingers, he just wants to go home. He hates this feeling, hates it. Daniel shoots him a grin. He can see that there’s nothing malicious or dishonest about it, but it makes him feel like his breath’s been caught in his throat.

Each time a fragment of the memories with Daniel that he’s kept away for decades come back to him, it’s like he’s small again, small and young and vulnerable and unaware and-

But then he looks at Daniel, the man across from him with bright blue eyes and a genuine, kind smile. There’s no way that man could’ve done those things to him. 

-

“Alright, what’s up.” Morgan sits down next to him at the end of the hotel bed. Reid gives him a look. “I told you we would be talking about it.”

“It’s nothing, Morgan. Really.” He rolls his eyes a little.

“You can’t expect me to believe that.” 

There’s a long pause before Reid takes a deep, shaky breath.

“It’s- It’s sort of hard to explain..” He trails off, what’s he supposed to say? There’s another pause.

“Is it something to do with Daniel?” Morgan’s met with a timid nod. “Did he give you a hard time when you were kids or something?” Reid remembers when he and Morgan had a conversation, a little too similar, about their respective social standings during their teenage years.

“No. Not really.” Reid uses both his shaking hands to push hair out of his face as he takes in another breath. “I don’t even think he remembers. We were both pretty young, but..” 

“How young?”

“I was five. I think he was around twelve or thirteen.” He sees Morgan raise an eyebrow at that. “I don’t really remember how many times it happened, or if it even did happen.” He knows that Morgan can tell he’s avoiding saying what he needs to, but that doesn’t make his heart race any less. Morgan places a hand on his knee and gives it a squeeze. 

“Look at me, Reid.” Their eyes finally meet. “Tell me what happened, please.”

“Sometimes when our parents were in the backyard, drinking or whatever, we’d play in his room. I enjoyed it because he had nicer toys than I did, and he also had books on a higher reading level. But at some point he asked me to- he made me do things for him, to him.” Reid sees Morgan push down the alarm that’s rising in his features. “Things that were- I guess, sexual. I didn’t really know what I was doing, or what he was doing. I just knew I was supposed to listen to him because he was older.”

“He molested you?”

“No! He was just a kid too, I don’t think he even remembers. And even if he does, I doubt he meant any harm at the time.”

“How old did you say the two of you were at the time again?” It doesn’t take Reid much effort to know that Morgan remembers,

“Twelve- Twelve and five.”   
“ _Reid_. You know that couldn’t have been consensual.” His tone is stern. 

There are tears pricking at the corner of his eyes, they feel like they’re boiling. He doesn’t know why he’s telling Morgan any of this. He nods and manages to choke out the words: “I know.”, as an arm is wrapped tightly, yet gently, around his shoulder. He leans into the half-hug and within a few seconds, Morgan’s shirt is soaked through with tears.

And they just sit like that for a few moments, Reid clinging to Morgan’s shirt and bawling his eyes out like a child until the older man breaks the silence.

“If you think that there’s any chance he could be the unsub. You gotta tell me, kid.”

“There’s not, but..” His voice is muffled by Morgan’s cotton shirt and yet he only leans in further, hiding. “I wish he was.” He feels circles being rubbed into his back but is given no response.“I know that’s horrible. It’s just- I need an excuse, to hate him, I mean. A better one.”

“There’s no reason for you to forgive him, you know that-”

“Yeah, yeah I know.” Reid cuts him off.

“-But I do understand.” Morgan finishes quietly.

“Thank you.” He mumbles, he means it.

-

Two days later, Maddie’s body is found in a ditch near the edge of town and it ends up being the clue that solves the case, and their unsub ends up being an average, middle-aged balding man who ran a gardening business.  The arrest doesn’t go smoothly and said unsub ends up shooting himself in the face with Hotch’s gun. The townspeople don’t even pretend to be sad that he’s dead.

Less than twenty-four hours afterward, they’ve left the town and Reid never sees Daniel again.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so that was kind of a lot, but let me know what you thought of it.


End file.
